


Safe Harbor

by Oparu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 12:39:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9323993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: Emma and Regina are both running late, and Killian ends up helping Maleficent with the newborn dragon queen baby. Fluff and found families.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Captain Dragon friendship is absolutely precious to me. I can't even explain it. 
> 
> Mal struggles with breastfeeding and bonds with Killian about being a former villain and Emma and Killian think about adoption.

Shuffling his feet in the corridor outside of Regina's office, Killian examined the art on the wall for the fifth time. It was simple: an oil painting of the historical founding of Storybrooke, that had never happened. The ship in the background intrigued him, though it was obviously an artist's conceit, the rigging was too square for a civilian vessel and that hull would have a hard time with the storms between Europe and what was going to be Maine. 

"Never get it right, do they?" Emma pats his shoulder and he turns, sheepish. 

"The trees are nice."

"But the ship is wildly inaccurate and demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of anything nautical." She smiles at him, doing her best imitation of his accent, which is both terrible and endearing. 

"Quite." He offers his arm. "Shall we head to dinner?"

She smiles, and now it's her turn to be shy. "I need to meet with Regina."

Glancing at the clock, he raises his eyebrows. "I thought that finished at half five." 

Emma looks at her boots. "It hasn't started." 

He scratches his head. "Oh?"

"Dr. Whale wants to upgrade the hospital's MRI machine, and they're really expensive. Regina thinks there might be a magical solution."

"Should I offer to take up piracy again to help the town coffers?" 

Emma chuckles. "Maybe. It shouldn't be too long, when she gets to me. I just want to buy another prowler because the last round of untold stories made a mess of it."

"The ghostly horses, aye." 

"Their ghostly hooves kind of destroyed the radiator, and I still have two, but the Queens of Darkness burned one last year and--"

"I'm sure it's a more reasonable request than the MRI device." 

Emma's little smile makes his chest warm. "I hope so." 

A door opens behind them and Whale emerges, mostly intact, but Regina's tone walks the edge of polite fury as he continues to argue. Emma rolls her eyes and intervenes, gently insisting that her meeting is incredibly urgent. Regina picks up on that immediately and Hook hides his smirk by turning his attention back to the painting. 

Whale's nearly out of the building when another door opens and he has a new target. Even with her arms full of the baby. The infant is barely three weeks old, and he thought Regina had endeavoured to get Maleficent more time away from the office. The town functioned perfectly well before they had an accountant, but now that they have one, it seems they cannot do without her. The dragon has his sympathies because even getting a dinner with Emma that's not pizza is difficult when there are magical creatures and portals and a constant stream of tiny crises. 

Whale barely says hello before he starts discussion the importance of being allocated the cost of the new MRI machine in the next monthly town budget and he's closer to her in a way that make Killian take a step in their direct. Maleficent is easily his height, but the doctor has a lack of self-preservation so that he's just right there. Arguing about money so that she can barely close the door, and her hands are full with the baby and the papers. 

Henry's little sister, the dragon princess, though Emma prefers the bizarre nickname of Ziggy Stardust, must be hungry, because she makes that little mewling cry that little Baelfire did. Someone, Whale ignores that and they continue to talk, Maleficent's voice growing colder, more reptilian. 

"Let me help," he offers, thinking he'll get the papers, not the baby. Then there she is, handed into his arms, wrapped in her blankets, and grumpy. 

"Thank you." 

He panics, because the baby is soft and warm and more fragile than a mermaid's hair. Judging by the way she scrunches up her face, she's a breath or two away from screaming and the moment's glance he shares with Maleficent suggests she knows this. She handed him a time bomb because perhaps then, Whale will understand that when she says, not now, she means it. 

There's little he can do to help either. That piercing wail is hungry and he lacks the equipment, even the constructed milk, that formula substance, doesn't seem to be around. He hums to the baby, walking up and down because babies are supposed to like that, but little Ziggy's having none of it. She wants to eat. 

"If you do not cease this conversation immediately and let me feed my daughter, I will eat you for expediency's sake." There's no real bite in Maleficent's tone, only an exhausted kind of menace. She must also be waiting for her lover to finish whatever tedium Emma and Regina have to conquer. 

Whale, finally, scurries away. The dragon takes one slow breath before she waves him back and trades him papers for the baby. She starts unbuttoning her shirt and waistcoat before she even sits down on the bench. 

"Thank you. I'm sorry she fussed."

Should he retreat? There's a flash of camisole, then white bra and he looks at his boots, studying the way the mud and the salt have damaged the polish. He starts to walk away, this requires privacy, but her sharp intake of breath startles him. 

There's pain in the lines on her forehead and the baby's mouth is at her breast, but-- 

"I didn't know it hurt." 

"Only at first when she's trying to latch." Her teeth are tight and she pats the bench beside her with her free hand. "Talk to me, please." 

He raises his eyebrows because he didn't think infants were like a gate and he's never seen feeding a child as something painful before. Not that he's seen in much, in the occasional pub, perhaps, never close. 

"I thought you weren't working for another month at least." 

"Several new tax initiatives began on the first of the year and Regina-" she shuts her eyes. Breasts are sensitive, and he knows they ban bring pleasure, but this hurts. 

"Does she have teeth?" Perhaps being part dragon brought them early.

"No..." Maleficent shakes her head, tears sparkling in her eyelashes. "No, she's just slow to-" she shifts her hand and the baby's mouth moves on her breast and then she sighs, finally smiling. "There." 

"Is it always like that?"

Pain finally leaves her face and he smiles back, almost as relieved as she must be. 

"She's eager, and I am just as impatient to stop her crying. Ignacia won't take a bottle and that makes the extraction device almost useless." 

"The pump."

"Regina thought it would be helpful but someone prefers to be fed from the source. Constantly." Maleficent tucks the blanket around the baby's arm but the little foot kicks out and one of her socks is lost to the floor. 

He bends and retrieves the sock, handing it to the dragon before he remembers that one of her hands is also busy. "Why is that?" 

Maleficent shrugs. "She's Regina's daughter, and mine, so she may have inherited more stubborn than she could ever need." 

He doesn't trust the hook anywhere near the baby, but her foot must certainly be cold. Somehow, working together, they get the sock back on that bare little pink foot. Only then he notices that it's a dragon sock, with little eyes on the toes and wings on the ankle. 

"Henry," she explains. "They're cute."

"Most things for babies are." He's seen some very cute socks with anchors, perhaps Regina and Maleficent would accept them on the baby's behalf. "Part of their charm." 

She removes the baby from her breasts without warning him and switches to the other, this only invites a repeat of the pain from before, and Maleficent shuts her eyes tight. 

"Why did you switch?"

"They feel uneven if she doesn't suckle from both." She opens her eyes and looks directly at him. "One breast feels heavier, the other too light, but until she finds the right spot--"

"What made it stop hurting last time?"

"Moving her head."

"Can I help?" Why did she want him to stay? Surely she'd be more comfortable without an audience for her suffering, unless it's the distraction she wants. 

"Put your hand on her head."

"Mine?" 

"It'll let it drop back, sometimes--" The pain makes her voice sharp and he obliges, letting her guide his hand and then the baby's round, heavy little head rests in his palm. 

"So you bring her to work?"

"Or I pop back and forth to where she is, magic makes that fairly convenient. She sleeps when she's not hungry, and luckily for her, she's cute enough that Aurora hasn't eaten her." 

"Aurora?" That's a surprise. "You cursed her."

"I apologized, at length, and it turned out that raising difficult babies was somewhere we could find common ground. Losing Lily made me understand how dreadful cursing her was for her parents, and Storybrooke is a land of second chances, it seems." 

He helps steady the baby while Maleficent moves her arm and that's it, she can smile again. 

"There." 

"Now it doesn't hurt?"

"Now it's just odd." She looks up at him and if it has occurred to her that they're both staring at the baby's head on her breast, she isn't nearly as discomfited by it as he is. "She tugs, it gets warm, but once it stops hurting, it's not bad." 

"Just constant."

"Every two hours, if I'm lucky." 

He raises his eyebrows. That explains the dark circles under Regina's eyes that haven't moved since the baby arrived and how now, the implacable dragon appears exhausted, even if Whale doesn't see it. "Worse than sailing through a storm."

"I used to land and cower through most of them." She pats his knee. "Thank you." 

He sputters that he hasn't--

"It's worse if I get frustrated, and you've been so calm."

He could explain that his chest is awash with emotion because he is not a man trusted with babies, nor one who knows anything about the act of feeding them, and they're not friends. Though, he did try to kill Emma and look where they are. 

"I'm glad I could help." That's a nicer answer than protesting that he didn't do anything. "I'm afraid I'm usually a source of furstration."

"Not when Henry speaks of you." She tilts her head, studying his face. "He's rather fond, I think."

Henry has been with them more since the baby arrived, trying to mix a teenager and an infant can be difficult and Emma's house is quieter. Not that he doesn't help, Killian's seen the lad stepping into new responsibilities with the arrival of his little sister, and he'll confess to himself that he's wondered if there aren't more babies in the future. Emma's been enthralled with the dragon baby since she arrived, and her friendship with Regina and Maleficent certainly deepened through the pregnancy, because she knew things neither of them did. 

Why is it so easy for her to make his skin flush with heat? Is it the way she doesn't seem to blink like a person ought to? He was a villain when he arrived and he's grown to expect that shift backwards, the moment where his past is reconciled. 

She must know that as intimately as he does, because Maleficent too was a villain. Perhaps it's worse to be a creature. Someone even David and Snow saw as a beast incapable of human emotion. He will do better. Perhaps the dragon treats him as a friend because she needs one. 

When the baby finishes, he holds out his hand for her and Maleficent chuckles. 

"Thank you." 

Ziggy, Ignacia, dragon princess of stardust, is so small that he can cradle her to his chest. She stares up at him sleepily, tiny pink mouth open as she burps. She smells sweet, of milk and the lavender from her blankets and that dark hair is definitely Regina's. 

Staring down at her, he misses the effort it takes Maleficent to dress herself again, and misses whatever she says because he's staring at the baby and she stares back. 

"Ignacia has beautiful eyes." 

"You may call her Ziggy, if you wish."

"I thought-" he breaks off, chuckling. "You must hate it." 

"It's rather sweet that she has a nickname already. Makes it feel like family." 

Beyond friendship then. It makes sense, in a way, Emma is Henry's mother, as is Regina and Maleficent is his step-mother in all but name and he- well- he does not know what the words are for sharing a child with another adult in this fashion, but he knows the importance of family and the pain of their absence. 

"Perhaps we are." 

Maleficent unwraps Ziggy's little feet and straightens her socks. "It's a pleasant thought, isn't it?" 

"Emma wants to adopt." He says it without thinking, almost to the baby rather than her. "She was never adopted and--"

"Regina can help, or Gold, if he's in a mood to be of assistance. If there's a financial component, Regina and I--"

She still doesn't blink. "Lily has talked of it. She doesn't want children yet, but if she does, she wants them to know they're wanted. Her adoptive parents were not--"

"Neither were Emma's." 

Maleficent shakes her head and her tears return, bright in her eyes. "I don't know who could return a child. Losing Lily destroyed my world, and having her back, having this little one, it's everything. I'd walk into the jaws of hell if I knew my children would be safe."

He shifts his coat and pulls his handkerchief out with his hook, handing it to her. "Here." 

"Thank you." She looks at him as she dabs her eyes. "Regina says I can't even look at the news without crying."

"I have several handkerchiefs." 

Maleficent laughs and sits back, content to let him hold the baby and he's quickly realizing how much he will regret letting her go. She's so warm that his chest's turned to goo with her against it. 

"Don't make her cry," Regina says, startling him from the right. "She'll never stop." 

"I'm so sorry that took so long." Emma kneels down in front of him, smiling at the baby. "Seems like you've made a friend." 

Ziggy's fallen asleep on his chest, little face pressed against the soft fabric of his shirt, half inside his jacket and he's holding her too close. Too tight. He should give her back--

"I invited them for dinner." Emma tilts her head to Regina with a soft little smile. "Figured pizza that they didn't have to order was the least I could do after being the last meeting." 

"Are you all right?" Regina asks, fussing as she leans down. Killian watches their moment before he turns to Emma and her face is just as soft. 

"Aren't you cute with a baby?"

"I assure you, it's accidental. She was rather incensed with me earlier." 

"She was hungry." Maleficent pats his shoulder, defending him. "And I used you to get rid of Whale." 

Regina makes a noise and Maleficent stands to speak to her about taxes and hospital upgrades and Emma flops onto the bench next to him and the baby. 

"See, not so bad, right?"

"Breastfeeding hurts." He whispers over the baby's little head. "I had no idea."

"It's a struggle sometimes. Regina spent the last part of the meeting telling me how worried she's been about everything, the baby putting on enough weight, is Mal sleeping enough, is she a terrible person for needing help with the tax stuff and bringing Mal back so soon after having the baby--" Emma trails off and kisses his cheek, then the baby's little head. "I'm glad you like him too, Ziggy." 

"All right, you two, Mal will teleport the cars and we'll be back to yours in a moment. It'll keep the baby from waking up if we don't have to go out in the cold." 

He stands, hyper-vigilant of the baby against his chest. Maleficent smiles at him, so does Regina, and Emma's hand lands on his back. Magic takes them away and Emma orders pizza while Mal talks to Henry and he sits in a chair with the baby. 

Regina sits on the sofa beside him, perched on the edge. "I don't know if Maleficent mentioned it, she probably did because she--"

"Has remarkably little concern for how what she says might be perceived."

"Yes, well." Regina rests her hand on her stomach. "Emma said you were thinking about adoption, and I know it might be complicated, especially with the paperwork on that side, and Emma's record. If there's anything we can do, financially, or with records, lawyers-- I've been through it with Henry, and Mal's very good at anything with forms."

Now it's his turn to stare. "Thank you." 

"Of course." She tugs her jacket and stands. "You're family." Regina leaves before either of them have to talk of the emotions they're not comfortable with, but Emma beams at him from the kitchen. She's had the offer too, then, and Killian kisses the baby's head, because that hides his eyes. 

Mal and Henry laugh, arguing over the movie and Emma grabs a big stack of plates and he does nothing, because there's a baby on him and he can't possibly move. He doesn't give her back until after Regina's eaten her pizza, and his arms feel empty. Emma cuddles up next to him and when Ziggy wakes up, eager to be fed again, Killian watches Regina help settle the baby on Mal's breast so he'll be ready to help next time. 

Like family. 


End file.
